We may not be able to travel right now but at least we can be proud of our Irish passport when things return to normal.
In fact, if you do hold an Irish passport then you can travel to 186 countries in the world without a visa.
The annual ranking compiled by Henley & Partners puts us in 6th place with Portugal, Sweden, France and the Netherlands who also can travel to 186 countries.
The UK’s passport which of course was once considered the finest in the world has fallen to 7th place.
It shares its position with Switzerland, the United States, Norway, Belgium and New Zealand (all able to enter 185 countries without visas).
Of course, now we are barely able to leave 5km’s from our house but it still is good to know that we have travel freedom.
So who holds the most powerful passports of 2021?
Great question, here is the top 10:
These results are WITHOUT COVID restrictions but you can see the top 10 with current restrictions at the end of this post.
- Japan (191 destinations)
- Singapore (190)
- South Korea, Germany (189)
- Italy, Finland, Spain, Luxembourg (188)
- Denmark, Austria (187)
- Sweden, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Ireland (186)
- Switzerland, United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Belgium, New Zealand (185)
- Greece, Malta, Czech Republic, Australia (184)
- Canada (183)
- Hungary (181)
Henley & Partner’s list is one of several indexes created by financial firms to rank global passports according to the access they provide to their citizens.
The Henley Passport Index is based on data provided by the International Air Transport Authority (IATA) and covers 199 passports and 227 travel destinations.
It is updated in real-time.
The world’s most powerful passports in 2021, WITH COVID-19 travel restrictions
According to the Passport Index by Arton Capital
- Germany (134 destinations)
- Sweden, Finland, Spain, New Zealand (133 destinations)
- Denmark, Norway, Switzerland (132 destinations)
- Netherlands, France, Portugal, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, Greece, Ireland, United Kingdom (131 destinations)
- Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Japan, South Korea (130 destinations)
- Slovenia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Iceland (129 destinations)
- Malta, Slovakia, Australia (128 destinations)
- Cyprus, Liechtenstein (127 destinations)
- Croatia, Romania (126 destinations)
- Bulgaria (125 destinations)
What will 2021 hold for all of us? Who knows! You couldn’t write the script for 2020. We are all in this together and thank you for stopping by. I share this on my weekly dose of Irish email newsletter every Friday. Subscribe here 🙂